to speak. “I-it’s me. Um, Mina and Jiro Teira’s daughter.”
“Do you think my memory’s gone just because I’m old? I don’t have time for this.” He began to slam the door shut.
Sora stuck her foot in the small opening just in time, wincing at the impact.
What had happened to him, though? She’d never heard Mr. Zaki utter an unkind word before. He always had a smile ready for every customer, and at the end of each night, he put out leftover dumplings in a dish behind his store so the stray cats would have something to eat.
“Mr. Zaki,” she said carefully, “are you all right? Is something going on?” Sora lowered her voice to a whisper. “Has Prince Gin made things difficult for you with this weapons forge in the square?”
“How dare you speak about our sovereign with such disrespect!” Mr. Zaki’s eyes went wide with outrage. “Get out before I report you for being disloyal to the crown!” He grabbed a metal spatula and lunged toward Sora.
She gasped and jumped back.
He slammed the door shut.
Tears welled and threatened to spill over. Broomstick, who had witnessed everything, wrapped his arm around her.
“I don’t understand,” he said. “Prince Gin couldn’t have already made it here to hypnotize everyone. He and the ryuu have been busy in the Imperial City.” They hurried out of the main square and to the outskirts of town, toward the mountain. “There’s something bigger than us going on here.”
“You can say that again,” Sora said weakly.
Broomstick steered Sora out of the village. “Come on, let’s get you to your parents. I’m sure you’ll feel better once you’re home.”
Sora didn’t say anything as they started up the winding switchbacks. It hadn’t sunk in before that Prince Gin’s war machine could already have reached Samara Village, even though she knew what his goals were.
Then something else dawned on Sora. If this inexplicable wretchedness could affect the people in Samara Village, then it could reach up the mountain, too.
“Mama! Papa!” She started sprinting.
“Spirit, pace yourself,” Broomstick yelled from behind her. “Or at least let me get us some horses to help!” There was still a long way to go up the steep mountainside.
He had a point. But Sora couldn’t slow down. “I’m sorry, I have to go ahead. Meet me there!” She commanded the ryuu particles to lift her, and they whisked her up the switchbacks, leaving Broomstick behind in the dust.
Chapter Twenty
Her parents’ home perched on the cliffs above the glistening sea, serene and so removed from the smoke and noise of the village below it seemed possible that everything would be all right. The air was scented with damp cypress boughs, just as Sora remembered, and the steps leading up to the front door were swept clean. She made her way into the small courtyard, with its wooden path and well-tended garden of ferns and baby maple trees and river-polished pebbles, and paused outside the room to the right, Papa’s pottery studio.
He sat at his wheel, pumping the pedal steadily to keep the platform turning, oblivious to the fact that anyone was watching. He had clay on his mustache and a smear of paint across his cheek, and those details combined with the soothing rhythm of the pedal filled Sora’s chest with relief. All was well here. She’d been afraid for nothing.
“Hello, Papa,” Sora said softly.
His hands faltered at the sound of her voice, and the clay he’d been carefully working wobbled on the wheel, growing lopsided. He snapped up his head and glared at her.
Sora took a step back. Papa had never looked at her that way before. Both her parents doted on her but Papa more so. He was the one who always insisted on giving her the best bed when she came to visit. Who couldn’t stop smiling proudly at his taiga daughter when she and Daemon did their exercises in the mornings, keeping in shape on school breaks by sparring on the deck and jumping in the trees that clung to the cliffside. Scowling was so unfamiliar it seemed uncomfortable on his face.
“Look what you’ve done,” Papa said, grabbing the lopsided clay from the wheel and hurling it at the wall. It hit with a loud splat, and Sora jumped. “I suppose you expect that you can just drop in unannounced because you’re a taiga and that your mother will have food on the stove for you and a bath drawn to welcome Your Honor’s return? All hail Luna’s chosen one.”
Sora cringed at the